


underneath the red mountain

by Cochlearia_Tatrae



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Gen, dragon break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 21:17:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20142133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cochlearia_Tatrae/pseuds/Cochlearia_Tatrae
Summary: "The Dragon breaks and the Battle of Red Mountain plays out countless of times, again and again, all at once"





	underneath the red mountain

_ Beneath the Red Mountain, deep within its sweltering hot bowels, Dagoth Ur sleeps.  _

_ _ _ The Dragon breaks and the Battle of Red Mountain plays out countless of times, again and again, all at once, but with changed variables, small and enormous, so that only the most powerful of gods can see it in its entirety. It will bend and heal, eventually, like all of Akatosh’s wounds do, but for now the time flies freely.  _

_ _ _ Dagoth Ur dreams.  _

***

“Where is he?” Voryn’s voice echoes in the Heart Chamber, so that the Tribunal can clearly hear it, even if they cannot see him yet. It’s low and somber and Almalexia closes her eyes and inhales sharply. 

“Voryn,” Sotha Sil begins and his voice shakes, even though he tries his best for it to be calm and steady. Almalexia knows what he’s attempting – talk to Voryn like colleagues, like friends, like brothers they once were, like mage to a mage, like they would back in Mournhold when they talked with their eyes shining and voices passionate, when they talked of stars and Wheel of Aurbis and gods. “Voryn, please give us the tools.” 

They stand silent and unmoving and Almalexia can swear that she still smell the stench of Nerevar’s blood on her clothes and skin. She wonder if Voryn could smell it, too. She wonders if he will even realize what they’ve done and she hopes he won’t. Vivec puts his arm on her shoulder, in a somewhat comforting gesture, but she’s no longer crying and the tears she had shed thus far have already dried and she keeps her head high. There’s no going back, now that her husband lies dead, now that his body burned and the ashes flew away with the wild, ocean winds that torment Vvardenfell. He has become one with his country. Almalexia thinks that Nerevar loved his country more than anything, all in all. He loved it even more than he loved her and Voryn. He certainly loved it with a different love, but one whose flame burned high and fair throughout his entire life. 

_ Lord Nerevar Indoril, Hai Resdaynia. _ What mockery! Resdayn was no more. The country they knew as such was in shambles. Resdayn depended on Nerevar. He was, in a sense, Resdayn. Not the entirety of it, after all she was its queen and Dumac the Dwarfking ruled over it, as well. But no matter – now both Dumac and Nerevar are dead and so is Resdayn. It will need a new name, one that will signify the change, one that will allow them to move on. One that will not carry the bitter, bitter truth that forever signifies the undiscovered crime they’ve committed. 

Last sob escapes Almalexia, against her will, but then she straightens her back. Vivec lowers his hand over her lower back, as if to steady her and help her. But she does not need that. She might be a murderer, but she’s also a queen and it is her duty to do what is the best for her people. She will wash the blood out of her clothes and hands, she will scrub her body till it hurts, till her own blood replaces Nerevar’s and then she will come out to greet her people; that is what she is bound to do – not only her duty, but her fate and destiny, as well. 

Finally, Voryn appears. He walks out of the shadows, strangely hidden by them, as if he was a part of Red Mountain now. It takes one look, and Almalexia knows that he did exactly what they feared he had done. Voryn’s eyes shine unnaturally and his stride is shaky and stiff, as if there was someone else in his body, controlling it like one would a puppet. She thinks that normally she’d cry – she loved Voryn, in her own way. He was a friend and it seemed that their relationships with Nerevar bound them together in its own, strange way. 

But Nerevar was dead and the bounds between them were no more; the threads fell apart. 

Then she sees Sil raising his staff and she feels her own grip on Hopesfire tighten. She holds the sword carefully and steadily and she knows she is ready to strike. 

At this point, Almalexia doesn’t even need to see the future to know what will happen. 

***

“Voryn,” Nerevar sobs to him and reaches out to his lover, even though they stand so far apart. The Tribunal stands their guard behind the king, even though they already know that neither Voryn nor Nerevar will walk out of there alive. Yet, they still stand, silent and unmoving like figures made of marble. 

“Please,” Nerevar’s pleas echo through the chamber, so that his words are heard many times over and over, each next word more distorted than the previous one.

But Voryn isn’t himself; he’s strange, absent. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t walk normally. It pains Nerevar to see him like this. Nerevar has no idea where are the Tools; they must be somewhere close, as it is painfully obvious what Voryn had done. 

“Lord Voryn Dagoth,” Nerevar hears Sil’s voice; it’s quiet and steady, as usual. Sil almost never loses his composure. His voice echoes through the chamber, but Voryn doesn’t seem to have heard it; slowly he walks towards them. He’s not carrying any weapons, but then again, he does not even need to; he’s a powerful mage, fearsome in combat – even though he has never been particularly fond of it. Nerevar thinks that it is madness, to even try to fight them – he and Ayem are the most renown warriors in the entire Resdayn, there isn’t a mage second to Sil and Vivec’s cunning can turn any battle around. Voryn may be powerful in his own right, but he does not have a soul of a fighter, nor enough combat prowess to challenge all of them, at once. 

But nonetheless, once he sees the flames that spark from the tips of Voryn’s fingers, once he hears the long and piercing shriek of a summoned daedra, he doesn’t even have a moment to think, before he needs to draw his sword and fight the one he loves most, in an act of self-defence. Even though the Tribunal fights by his side, in time it turns, in a way, into a duel – a deadly dance between lovers, where magic and steel fly and shimmer and clash together. Nerevar can smell the burnt flesh and can taste blood; he feels it dripping from his nose and a cut on his brow; it gets into his eyes, but he does not care. 

Then, in a moment he sees Voryn whispering a spell, but his empty eyes are affixed at something behind Nerevar and so the Hortator takes a swing, the light trace of Trueflame hangs in the air for a moment and then – everything is silent, as Voryn trembles and falls down, onto his face, before Nerevar manages to catch him and gently lay him upon his lap. He feels tears in his eyes and lets them fall. There’s nothing in his mind anymore, nothing but dying Voryn laying on his knees.

Nerevar glances at his lover’s stomach, at slowly spreading red colour, uneven, darkening the already scarlet clothes, so that they look almost black. Nerevar is scared to move, afraid it would cause Voryn needless pain, but he does lean down and kisses him, on his lips. Voryn’s eyes are closed, but when he feels Nerevar’s lips on his, he lifts his heavy eyelids. 

“I had perhaps,” Voryn says, his gold eyes half-closed and lips barely moving, as a trickle of dark red blood runs down his chin. “Completely forgotten what did it mean not to love you, my Lord. Now, when I ponder upon it, I can barely recall the time when it wasn’t so and at all do not know how did it feel.” 

He smiled and raised his hand, touching Nerevar’s cheek, smearing blood across it, tenderly running his thumb over his lover’s high cheekbone, just like he would do often, before he’d laugh and kiss Nerevar sweetly and earnestly. 

“Sweet Voryn,” Nerevar whispers and kisses first Voryn’s hand and then his temple. “Why did you do it?”

With the remainder of his strength, Voryn tilts his head, as if ready to answer and then, suddenly, his gaze is clouded and hazy, just like it was when they fought before, when Nerevar plunged Trueflame straight into his lover’s abdomen. He blinks a few times, but does not say anything. Suspended in a fragile state between life and death, not quite either one, but losing his life force with each second. Nerevar thinks that he can feel the power of Heart within Voryn; that whoever he just held in his arms wasn’t quite whom he held in them just a few days ago.

Then, Voryn sighs and releases his last breath. His body stiffs for a moment and then relaxes, as his hand falls down and his chest stops rising, forever. 

Nerevar feels tears streaming down his face, he sees them dripping down, some onto Voryn’s face. He brings them close, again and kisses him and then he kisses him again. Every of these kisses feels like it should be the last one, but Nerevar can’t stop. He kisses Voryn’s mouth and nose, he leaves small kisses on his brow and closed eyelids and on his cheeks and on the top of his head, as if he believed that one of these kisses might bring Voryn back, cause blood to flow in his veins again and his lungs to take another full breath of air. He curses everything that has led to this moment – the Red Moment, as he calls it in his mind – the Dwemer, the Tools, Lorkhan himself. The things that made him lose what was the brightest in his life. 

(sometimes, he would imagine things that could never be. A home that they could call their own. Their hands intertwined and shoulders touching, always publicly. Almalexia that would laugh and wish them well, instead of looking at Nerevar with resentment of a passion that has already ended and left no more than painful memories. Voryn holding their son and Nerevar holding their daughter. Nerevar carrying a completely different surname. Childish foolery, meant to deceive the heart, turn its attention away from the reality that hurt it) 

“Leave me,” Nerevar says as he cradles Voryn’s body close to his chest. His voice isn’t strong or loud, but it echoes through the chamber, nonetheless; it shakes, only if a little. Almalexia glances at Vivec, who stands pale and shaky next to her and then at Sil, who had closed his eyes entirely, perhaps refusing the breach the privacy of the scene before them. They are all battered, worn and bloodied, exhausted and barely standing, still, but it feels like nothing now; in truth, everything feels like nothing, like an endless void of a depthless lake, dark and opaque, in which the past had just drowned. The ALMSIVI moves a few steps back, still carefully observing Nerevar, who turns back to Voryn. Eventually, they exit the chamber entirely, but still stand guard outside of it. Their work has not yet ended. An era comes to a closure; an age is ending – and it ends with lovers whose wounds even the mighty time couldn’t heal. 

***

They were too late; it was foolish of them – they should’ve hurried, they should’ve been more careful. They shouldn’t have trusted Nerevar when he said he’d venture into the Red Mountain, alone. 

Now that it is all done – Nerevar, Voryn Dagoth, Dumac and Kagrenac – all dead; it feels strange and eerie. Like walking on an edge of the deep, bottomless abyss. Something is in the air, though none of them can clearly say what is it exactly. 

Nerevar’s body lies next to them, and Almalexia sobs. Vivec is crying, too and the only person who seems to have retained his composure is Sil, even though Almalexia knows that he’s hurting, too. She knows very well that Seht loved Nerevar, as well. 

“It’s our fault,” Vivec chokes out, through tears. “We did it ourselves. We were too late and he died because of us.” 

“Voryn killed him,” Sil says, staring straight in front of him, refusing to look at Nerevar’s body nor at the other Tribunes. “Not us.”

“Why would Voryn kill him,” Almalexia says and then covers her mouth as another sob rocks her body. “Voryn loved him.” 

“That wasn’t Voryn, Ayem,” Vivec says, and his voice raises with uncernatiny, and turns to Sil. “Was it?” 

Seht shooks his head. He’s not sure what had just transpired, still, but he knows whatever they just stuck down, wasn’t Voryn, at least not entirely. Voryn they knew was loyal and honest, closed within himself, but kind and fair. 

“I will take the Tools,” he says. He’s not exactly asking for permission; they’ve talked about it, both with each other and with Nerevar, but after an argument Sil decided to drop the subject. “And I will study them.”

Vivec draws his breath, sharply. “After all of this? Do you want to end up like Voryn, you old fool?”

But Almalexia, who has stopped crying, stands up and walks up to Sil; he’s taller than her and so she has to raise her chin to look him in the eyes. “Will you be careful?” she asks and her voice is quiet and low, somber but it finally doesn’t shake. And when Seht nods slightly, even though there’s a pang of uncertainty in his heart, she embraces him and kisses his forehead. They stand like this for a moment, before Vivec also raises to his feet and approaches them. He puts his arms around them and kisses first Ayem, then Seht. A tender and uncertain gesture, but a gesture of trust and love, nonetheless. A gesture that, in a way, marks the new beginning. 

***

When it is time to address the crowds in Mournhold, Almalexia wears her mourning robes and her crown proudly. She raises her chin high and her brow is furrowed; she’s no grieving widow, she’s not sure she ever was one. If there were tears in her, tears that she’d shed about her husband – there aren’t any, not anymore. She speaks calmly and slowly, with simple words. She stares at the masses of Chimer beneath her, all transfixed on her. Some crying, some just standing with their mouths open. 

And now she understands what had happened; Nerevar had died and lived at the same time; he had exchanged the warmth of life for a marble coldness of immortality. His death was not his end nor his destruction – it was his  _ commencement _ , the real start of his legend. Because even though his heart would beat no more, he remained among them, almost mockingly. When his mortal body ceased to exist, when he had drawn his last ragged breath and his chest had risen for the last time, it was truly his beginning, his birth. Mortal heroes die and are great not in spite, but because of it, and Nerevar has just became the grandest of examples. 

She’s not as good with words as Vivec is; she might write a speech to her people or cleverly word a letter to High Councillor or a foreign leader, but she’ll never dress up her thoughts in such beautiful words, as would Vivec. But it doesn’t matter now; in truth it will never matter – people will sing songs and tell stories and every time a story is told it will change; it will be distorted, if slightly, a ripple on the perfectly peaceful water, soon to be changed into a wave that will sweep everything with its sheer force. 

And soon, change will come. It will run through the country, run through the world. Nobody but gods knows yet what will happen, but nearly nothing will remain the same. The gold will turn to ash and redness of precious rubies. 

And yet, one person will sleep throughout it in its entirety. He will sleep when the Tribunal gains their godly powers, he will sleep through the plagues and invasions from lands beyond, throughout dynasties rising and falling. He will sleep through the Three Banners War when the entire Tamriel will march to the rhythm of war drums. He will lay in slumber when a man becomes a god. And in the last years of second era he will open his eyes again, though different and transformed, nearly beyond any recognition. 

But not yet. For now, Dagoth Ur sleeps. 

**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading this old thing that i've decided to post! Sorry for all the mistakes, I'm not a native English speaker and there's only so many times one can go over their own work and not have enough of it.


End file.
